Former Director General of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Major General Edet Akpan, was on April 11 detained at Department of State Security (DSS) Uyo headquarters for three days on allegation of electoral malpractices and taken to court. The matter was later thrown out for want of evidence. He spoke to Special Correspondent, EMMA AYUNGBE, in his country home in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State on his travails.
What was really the issue surrounding your recent detention by men of the Department of State Security (DSS)?
I was in my village, Iwok 1 in Nsit Atai Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State, to exercise my right to vote during the governorship and state assembly elections in April 11, 2015. I left my house early on that day to my polling unit to do my accreditation and cast my vote. I had hardly arrived the venue when some hoodlums invaded the place and carted away all election materials along with Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ad-hoc officials. In my confusion, I decided to get back home to make report to law enforcement agencies on phone.
I got home to discover quite a crowd of people in my compound. On enquiry, I was told some youths, who were fighting with rival groups, carted election materials and thought my house would provide the security for the materials. Of course, I condemned their action. The youths in my ward knew that I don’t condone electoral offences in any form. What I repeatedly enjoined them to do was to ensure adequate security at all polling units, so that nobody would cart away election materials.
Some minutes after my arrival, a combined monitoring security team arrived at my house. They witnessed what happened and we agreed that all election materials should be taken back to designated polling units. I was advised by the security team to report to the DSS HQ at Uyo and make my report to “exonerate” myself. I accepted and reported to the DSS HQ to document my statement on what happened in my ward.
How did it go in the DSS office?
The DSS staff interrogated me and took my documented statement. They apologised for delaying me and were just about to see me off when they informed me that I could no longer go home because orders just came from above that I should not be released.
I demanded to know where the “above” instruction came from. I was told it came from Prof. Attahiru Jega, the INEC Chairman. I am not aware the INEC chairman has a right to detain anybody, let alone illegal detention. It was curious and suspicious that the detention order came from the INEC chairman, knowing very well that Jega is a mature and law-abiding public officer and certainly not a product of today’s era of impunity.
All through those days, the DSS and the police never brought any charge of electoral offence against me because there was none. By Monday, April 13, my lawyers contacted INEC and the courts to know if any charges had been registered against me, and none could be found.
You were said to have accused former Governor Godswill Akpabio as being behind your ordeal. How did you arrive at the suspicion?
The first time I heard somebody levelling charges against me was on Sunday, April 12, 2015 when I was told that the then Akwa Ibom State Governor, Godswill Akpabio, appeared on a TV programme on Saturday, April 11, and claiming that I was “arrested along with people in supposed police uniform” and that I “shot my way through and packed election materials to my house to thumb-print”.
It is intriguing that Akpabio, who should have been voting in his unit either in the Government House, Uyo, or his village in Essien Udim Local Government Area, was in a position to know what was happening in my ward. Even if he knew what happened in my ward, on that day, he was only a voter just like me or any other person. The Electoral Act does not assign any role, monitoring or otherwise, to governors. So was he the spokesman of INEC, the police or the DSS? The whole charade is in line with the character or the former Governor of Akwa Ibom State. He had always seen his office of governor as a licence to insult, malign and assassinate people’s character just to massage his ego.
It is laughable for the former governor to say we were thumb-printing in my house, as if he did not know that I was denied opportunity by his agents of thumb-printing legally for my candidates in the two sets of elections. In the first election, I succeeded in doing my accreditation but couldn’t vote because some hoodlums carted away all election materials after accreditation. In the second election, the hoodlums carted away the materials before I could even be accredited, let alone have the opportunity to vote.
It is interesting that it was the former governor that should be condemning people for carting away election materials. I can imagine that this is a distraction for the general public who already knew that elections did not take place in most parts of Akwa Ibom because the state government and its agents diverted election materials to their homes and hide-outs.
The second person who levelled charges of electoral offences against me during the April 11, 2015 election was Barrister Andem Andem, again, on TV – this time on ‘Sunrise Daily’, an interview programme.
It was clear from his spirited disposition that he had a job to do to please his masters against an innocent person. It was obvious that Andem was an agent of the Akwa Ibom State Government. He claimed that the “AIG moved in and arrested Rtd. Major-General Akpan with exhibits… (what exhibits?), doing thump-printing for APC, because the General is an APC member”. He also asserted that “until two days ago, the flag of the APC was hoisted in the house of General Akpan”. He went ahead by commending Akpabio for insisting that Akpan be prosecuted in a law court. This is a lawyer talking. Is his mentor, the former governor, an official of INEC or any of the law enforcement officers to be the one to ensure that Akpan is prosecuted for electoral offences?
It is clear from the claims by Akpabio and Andem that they shared a joint project. But what crimes would General Akpan have committed against the two of them to warrant such level of collaborative plotting, condemnations and fabrications?
Until I listened to Andem’s stories, I never imagined that party men do hoist party flags in their personal houses. Must the lawyer go to this ridiculous extent to destroy General Akpan? In case Andem is truly ignorant, I am one of the founding conveners of the PDP in Akwa Ibom State. I decided to quit partisan politics when the immediate past leadership of the party in the state bastardised the party operations in the state and rubbished founding party elders in the state. Since then, I have remained non-partisan.
Do you intend to go to court now that the case has been thrown out by the court?
I am a practising Christian and a child of God. Not even millions of the likes of the two people can gang up to destroy me or my hard-earned reputation. Their devilish vituperations and scheming know no bounds. Now that the court has declared me innocent because INEC had no case against me, I will ask my lawyers to take approximate actions against my two traducers.
